Philosophy 433 History of Ethics Darwall Winter 2000
HUME II
I Hume argues in Treatise II.iii.3 that:
(a) reason cannot motivate by itself (since reason only enables us to form beliefs
(demonstratively or probabilistically), and whether an individual is motivated by any
particular belief depends on her desires;
(b) no action or passion can be criticized by reason (since only what can be true or
false can be).
II Hume makes use of these claims in Part I, Section I of Book III, in which he aims
to show that "moral distinctions" are "not deriv'd from reason." But just as we had to be
careful last time to distinguish two distinct senses in which Hume was arguing that reason
could not oppose passion, so this time we will need to attend to two different things that
Hume tends to run together in arguing that moral distinctions cannot derive from reason.
Sometimes what he is claiming is that an action or passion cannot be morally bad in virtue
of being contrary to reason. At other points the thesis he has in mind is that no moral
proposition can be discovered by reason. We should note that these are strictly
independent theses. It could be false that, say, if an act is wrong that is because the act is
contrary to reason or unreasonable and still be true that reason can discover the truth of the
proposition that it is wrong. It would, of course, then be true that a person would be acting
contrary to a moral injunction whose truth could be grasped by reason. In that sense he
would be acting contrary to reason. But it would still not necessarily be true that what
made his so acting wrong would be that he was acting contrary to reason. On the contrary,
he would be acting contrary to reason because of the possibility of grasping the
independent fact that his act was wrong.
Hume was not making a simple confusion in running these two together. Many
rationalists who had argued that reason could discover moral truth had also held that moral
truth depends on reason. Thus, the great early 17th C natural law theorist, Hugo Grotius,
had argued that reason can know the natural law and that the natural law expressed dictates
of reason itself. And rationalist contemporaries of Hume's in Britain, such as Samuel
Clarke and William Wollaston, held similar positions. Indeed, it might not be too far
wrong to say that arguing for these two claims together is the best hope a rationalist has.
III We can deal pretty quickly with Hume's arguments that moral distinctions cannot be
based on rational ones, that is on some kind of falsehood or error.
A. Hume's first argument is simply a repetition of his argument from Book II that
no passion (and, now, no action) can be contrary to reason because only something which
is capable of being true or false can accord with, or be contrary to, reason. (458)
B. He then goes on to point out that, while there are two extended senses in which
we can call an action or passion unreasonable, neither of these seem to be related to
whether it is laudable or blameworthy. Thus, a passion may be said to be unreasonable if it
is based on a mistaken belief about its object (say, about whether it exists). Or an action
may be said to be unreasonable if it derives from a mistaken belief about what means there
are to accomplish various ends. [Of course, Hume's prefers to say that in these cases it is
really the basis belief, and not the consequent passion or action, which is strictly speaking
unreasonable.] But in neither case are we likely to hold that these sorts of
unreasonableness are any basis for holding a passion or action to be morally bad:
"these errors are so far from being the source of all immorality, that they are
commonly very innocent, and draw no manner of guilt upon the person who is so
unfortunate as to fall into them." (459)
Additionally, he observes that if immorality derives from unreasonableness, then it
should attach as much to judgments "concerning an apple" as much as one concerning "a
kingdom."
C. He finally considers the possibility that actions become morally criticizable by
virtue of bringing about unreasonable beliefs as effects. (461) One may well wonder why
he sees fit even to consider this possibility, but he takes this view to have been held by a
writer "who has had the good fortune to obtain some reputation," viz., William Wollaston.
In fact, this was not Wollaston's view. He held that actions express beliefs, and that when
they express false beliefs they are wrong by virtue of that. So, he thought, when someone
lies, in addition to the propositions she asserts, she also implicitly asserts that these
propositions are true, that she believes them to be true, and so on. Because these implied
beliefs are false, her action is wrong. Or a thief, in stealing someone else's property,
implicitly asserts that the property belongs to him (the thief). Because this is false, the
action is wrong.
Now Hume does not argue against these claims of Wollaston's. Instead, he argues
against the thesis that an action cannot be wrong by virtue of creating false beliefs as a
consequence. Although Hume's example of "a person, who thro' a window sees any lewd
behaviour of mind with my neighbour's wife", and who thereby sees something wrong,
although hardly by virtue of having a false belief, is arguably more titillating, I confess to
being partial to the example he mentions in 462n of "squint-sighted persons" who are
hardly immoral by virtue of appearing to address one person when in fact they are
addressing another. Those of you who have had the pleasure of wondering whom I was
calling on when you had your hand in the air may appreciate why this is so.
In any case, we need not bother much with the possibility of an action or passion being
wrong by virtue of being contrary to reason given what Hume is willing to countenance as
ways in which something may be contrary to reason. If reason simply is "the discovery of
truth or falshood," then he must be right. But is this indeed the way we should think of
reason? Here we should think back to Butler and the line of thought which links the
having of a certain kind of reflectively motivating capacity to the capacity to act for
justications or reasons. And we shall encounter a similar, if still quite distinct and original
thesis when we come to Rousseau, and, again, to Kant. In each case we need to think of
which picture is more compelling, bearing in mind that not much can possibly hang on
whether we call these reason or not.
IV By far the most influential of Hume's arguments for the claim that morality cannot
derive from reason depends on his thesis that morality is inherently motivating in a way
that no state deriving from reason, no belief, can possibly be. Reason can never motivate,
by itself, whereas morality is, Hume seems to say, intrinsically motivating, at least to some
degree.
Now, while this idea has been extremely influential, it is also pretty murky, and
hard to state precisely. At the end of the last notes, I noted that Hume's evidence for his
claim, "that men are often govern'd by their duties, and are deter'd from some actions by
the opinion of injustice, and impell'd to others by that of obligation," seems fully consistent
with there being nothing intrinsically motivating either in moral convictions or judgments,
or in morality itself. Nonetheless, Hume is usually taken to be arguing that moral
judgments are intrinsically motivating. So understood, he is taken to argue somewhat as
follows:
(1) The judgment that some act is wrong, or that some passion is vicious, is
intrinsically motivating in the sense that a person so judges only if she is motivated (or
would be under certain conditions) against the action or passion to some degree.
(2) Reason can only lead us to beliefs that such-and-such is the case, and no such
belief is intrinsically motivating in this sense.
(3) Therefore, no moral judgment can derive from reason.
Although Hume doesn't draw any further conclusions, Humean philosophers have
drawn such further conclusions as
(3)' Therefore, no moral judgment is a belief.
(3)'' No moral judgment can be true or false.
CRITICALLY EVALUATE THESE ARGUMENTS
V While this is the usual way of understanding Hume, he rarely expresses himself in terms
that suggest (1). He is as likely to say, somewhat cryptically, that "morals" or "the
distinction betwixt moral good and evil" can themselves influence conduct. Note the
following:
"If morality had naturally no influence on the passions . . . " [he is suggesting it
does] (457)
"morality . . . 'tis supposed to influence our passions and actions, and to go beyond
the calm and indolent judgments of the understanding." (457)
"morals, therefore, have an influence on the actions and affections." (457)
"morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions" (457)
AND, in the passage where he is arguing that actions and passions cannot be
contrary to reason in the other sense, he throws in:
"as reason can never immediately prevent or produce any action by contradicting or
approving of it, it cannot be the source of the distinction betwixt moral good and evil,
which are found to have that influence." (458)
"The merit or demerit of actions frequently contradict, and sometimes controul our
natural propensities. But reason has no such influence. Moral distinctions, therefore, are
not the offspring of reason. Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so
active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals." (458)
Note how in the very same passage here Hume says both that "the merit or demerit"
of actions can itself influence, and that the influence derives from the "sense of morals."
WHAT DOES HE MEAN?
VI We can actually get some idea of how his thought is moving here by looking at another
argument he gives for why moral distinction cannot derive from reason. This is after he
has drawn a contrast between demonstrative reason, which can lead us to knowledge about
the relations between ideas, and probabilistic reason, which leads us to knowledge of
matters of fact. He describe an example in an arresting way. The sort of things Hume says
about this example (at 468), and across the page in his famous "Is/Ought Passage" (469)
have led his readers to suppose him to be drawing a contrast between matters of fact, on
the one hand, and matters of value, on the other--between 'is''s and 'ought''s--the thought
being that reason can only enable us to discover facts, not values--'is''s, not 'ought''s.
Whether that is so or not, consider what he says on 468.
"Take any action allow'd to be vicious: wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in
all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice.
In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and
thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as
long as you consider the object."
Now what is the thought here? I think it is something like this. Whenever we
evaluate something, we do so on the basis of its features, on the "matter[s] of fact in the
case." But precisely because our evaluation is of the object, and based on its features, what
value we take the object to have cannot itself be one of the object's features. Since its
value rests on the matters of facts in the case, it cannot itself be another matter of fact in
the case. Through our use of reason we can inform ourselves about the object of
evaluation, about its features and the facts of the case. But this is all reason can do; it
cannot additionally inform us of the object's value, or of a passion's morality, because that
is not itself a feature of the object or a matter of fact of which we can be informed by
reason.
But now notice Hume's suggestion about where we can look to find the viciousness
of, say, murder:
"You can never find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a
sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of
fact; but 'tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object." (468-
9)
Notice how Hume seems to say that the vice itself is in the spectator--it is his
disapprobation. This is paradoxical, and not his most considered way of representing his
views, but it may help to explain why he both says that moral distinctions and the "sense of
morals" are motivating. It may be that, when he writes these things, he is thinking of the
moral distinctions as existing by way of the sentiments aroused in a spectator. Thus:
"Nothing can be more real, or concern us more than our own sentiments of pleasure
and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue, and unfavourable to vice, no more can
be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behaviour." (469)
[N.B. as well, Hume's comparison of vice and virtue to "sounds, colours, heat and
cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions
in the mind." (469)